


No Longer a Sidekick

by Annariel



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors, Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures - Various Authors, Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So how did Fitz Kreiner rebuild his life after he left the Doctor?  Particularly when aliens will keep interrupting his plans?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sarah-Jane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lelek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lelek/gifts).



> Dear Lelek
> 
> Sorry, no Fitz and Eight. I was inspired by your story [A History of Rust](http://archiveofourown.org/works/405703) upon which I fully intend to leave kudos once authors have been revealed, and I wanted to continue it to see what would happen next.
> 
> Of course then Night of the Doctor aired and I nearly incorporated that into this, but in the end I separated out all my desperate Night of the Doctor thoughts and put them into a separate treat for you. Still very little Eight, I'm afraid, though I'm now quite keen to write someone - perhaps for the New Year's Resolution Collection.
> 
> I hope you like these anyway, lack of the Eighth Doctor notwithstanding.
> 
> Your Author
> 
> Acknowledgements: Thanks for beta-reading and SJA expertise go to [hhertzof](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof) and to fredbassett (on LJ) for hand-holding.

Of course, deciding to give it a go didn't alter the fact that Fitz was standing on the corner of an anonymous street, in a London of indeterminate year, and that he hadn't managed to get hold of any cigarettes in six months.

He turned out his pockets to take stock: two lengths of string, five guitar picks, an apple ( _an apple_ he couldn't even begin to think why there was an apple in his pocket), a novelty souvenir of a nodding tiger, three paperclips, two biros, five shillings and six pence, plus a handful of other currencies only some of which he recalled ever seeing. He shoved everything back in his pocket, except for the British money and set out to find a newsagent. Once he'd had a smoke, he'd be able to make a plan.

That was when a car drew up at the curb. It was a futuristic kind of car, which meant Fitz was definitely not back in the 1960s. The window wound down and a woman leaned across the passenger seat to stare at him.

Fitz had mixed feelings about Sarah Jane Smith, or rather he had very mixed feelings about Samantha Jones, and last time he'd heard anything Sam was staying with Sarah.

"Fitz?" Sarah queried.

"Sam with you?" he asked nonchalantly.

Sarah Jane's eyes glazed over momentarily. Fitz shivered, recognising the symptoms of Time War fall out. Something had changed. He hated it when that happened. Sarah Jane shook her head after a moment.

"No," she said.

"You don't even know who I'm talking about," Fitz replied, and he could detect the note of accusation in his voice.

"No," she agreed. She looked tired. He probably wasn't the only person fed up with the Time War and it's effects.

"Bloody hell, I need a smoke really badly." He shoved his hands in his pockets again and rocked back on his heels, looking up and down the street.

"Do you have any money?" she asked.

"Five and six," he replied smugly.

Sarah Jane frowned at him. "Any modern money?"

"Oh bloody hell, not decimal. When is this exactly?"

"2011. Look are you getting in the car or not?"

Fitz looked up and down the street again. He really didn't want to get in the car with Sarah. He really didn't want to face the fact that Sam had vanished, that Sarah had never met her, that maybe she had never existed. What he wanted was to slouch off, find some ciggies, get his act together and then... Of course, he was stuck in London, some time in the future. He had no money and nowhere to go and for once the Doctor was definitely not coming to get him. Fitz hunched over pushing his hands further into his pockets. Then he sighed, opened the passenger door and got in. It wasn't like he had any better options. 

"How did you know where to find me?" he asked after a minute or two.

"Guess."

"He could have come himself."

"The Doctor doesn't work like that. Once it's over, he moves on."

Fitz closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window. "He survived, though?"

He could hear the desperation in his voice and the exhaustion, but he needed to know that the Doctor got out of the nightmare alive.

"He survived. I'll fill you in when we get back to my place." 

Fitz could tell Sarah thought she was going to deliver bad news, but then he'd already seen the changes in the Doctor. He wasn't exactly expecting him to be all sparkles and happiness on the other side of the war.

* * *

Fitz slept on the couch for a week and tried to ignore the Scooby Gang of children who apparently inhabited the place. It wasn't easy.

"I thought the Doctor's companions would be, you know, more impressive," Clyde said.

"I have hidden depths."

"Is that why you're standing smoking in the garden in the rain?"

Fitz was tempted to ask Clyde precisely how many times he'd saved the world, but Fitz was a bit worried that Clyde might beat him on that score. He was sure Rani would beat him, but he was a bit intimidated by Rani and was used to the Doctor, or in this case Sarah Jane, being surrounded him/herself by intimidatingly competent women. However, he objected to being out comedy-side-kicked by someone who was probably half his age. And wasn't that a depressing thought, what exactly had happened to his life?

"What are you planning to do then?" Clyde asked when Fitz failed to respond beyond tapping the ash off the end of his cigarette onto the patio stones.

"Dunno. Get a job." Even saying it depressed Fitz, but what else was there. 

"You could try playing gigs in the pub. I've heard you on that guitar of yours. You're OK for an old bloke playing ancient music."

Fitz winced and scowled at Clyde. "Who are you calling old?"

Clyde gave him a look. Fitz took an extra long drag on the cigarette. 

"Or, you know, you could help Sarah out?" Clyde suggested.

"My days of being a side-kick and saving the world are over," Fitz said. After all surely the point was to grow up, to get over the Doctor and carry on.

He gazed thoughtfully at Clyde. Fitz had always wanted to be a musician so it wasn't such a stupid idea. He could always learn new tunes.

* * *

He would have earned £50 for his first gig, if he hadn't been kidnapped by some kind of alien megalomaniac with a strange penchant for black and silver jumpsuits. Not that she didn't carry them off well. Fitz leaned back and admired the view while Rani and Clyde attempted to pick the lock of their cage with Sarah Jane's sonic lipstick. 

"You _could_ try to help us," Rani accused as she grappled with the device.

"Nah, my days of side-kicking are officially over. I'm just an innocent bystander."

He gazed around the room. "Besides she's got some kind of counter sound wave thing set up over there. The Doctor and I ran into one somewhere out near Alpha Centauri."

"So what? We need to destroy it then?" Clyde asked.

"Or cancel out the cancelling sound waves with a separate signal," Fitz replied almost without thinking.

Fitz looked down at the floor of their cage. The megalomaniac had dumped his guitar and amplifier in with them. Fitz had been carrying them to the pub where the gig was. Setting up a cancelling sound wave would be a piece of cake.

"Look, guys this is a strictly one-time deal. Next time aliens invade, leave me out of it."

* * *

"Just an innocent bystander, eh?" Clyde asked.

Fitz had no idea how the boy could run and talk while Fitz was gasping for breath. The Slitheen on their tail could put on a surprising turn of speed given their size.

They barged through some fire doors. The cleaning staff had obviously been around before the Slitheen arrived because Fitz nearly tripped over the mop and bucket left abandoned in the hallway. He paused to grab the mop and wedge it through the door handles.

"Nice," commented Clyde.

"Innocent, yet resourceful." Fitz couldn't help a grin.

Then they ran on. Somewhere ahead of them Sarah was setting up a gizmo that would, allegedly, sort everything out.

* * *

Later that night, after Rani and Clyde had been sent home, Fitz and Sarah got drunk and ever so slightly maudlin over a bottle of chardonnay, a frozen pizza and several packets of crisps.

"I can't believe you put that thing, whatever it was, together using only bits of string and the inside of a telephone."

"A smart phone, but I had help. Don't forget there's a super-computer in the attic."

"Still, I thought only the Doctor could do that kind of shit."

There was a sharp silence between them. They hardly ever mentioned the Doctor directly. Fitz liked to pretend that it was because the topic was too painful for both of them, but he had a sneaky suspicion that Sarah was steering clear for his sake.

"Fitz." Sarah put a hand on his arm and her eyes were full of sympathy.

Fitz leaned in because he was slightly drunk, and because he needed some comfort and because Sarah was a good looking woman. But mostly because he really, really didn't need a heart-to-heart about getting over the Doctor and kissing her seemed like a good way to bypass that.

She pushed him away firmly.

"Hey!" 

"You're half my age, Fitz," she said, and at least she seemed to be laughing gently at him rather than angrily.

He frowned in confusion. "What's that got to do with it?"

Her face fell. "God, you are so like him sometimes."

Which was a bit like a bucket of cold water. He slumped into a chair in front of her kitchen table and poured himself another glass. "I try not to be."

"Don't we all," she said sympathetically.


	2. Ace

Ace McShane turned up the next day. Fitz was watching daytime TV in Sarah Jane's living room and nursing his hangover with a sense of grim satisfaction. He looked up to see this woman in motorcycle leathers and reflective sunglasses. He felt himself flinch. Everything about her screamed soldier at him and he'd had enough of soldiers to last a life time, and that was only the ones he'd met during the Time War.

"Fitz, this is Dorothy. We met recently through her charity."

The woman cast an appraising glance over Fitz and he got the strong impression she was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"Ace," she said.

"Hi." Fitz didn't get up and he could hear the truculent tone in his voice.

"This him?" Ace asked Sarah.

"Yes," said Sarah Jane.

"Doesn't look like much?"

"Oi!" Fitz felt it necessary to interject. "Who says I have to look like much?"

Ace stared at him a moment and then took off her sunglasses. She looked much more like an actual person once they were gone. He could see the crows-feet around her eyes. "Sarah thought you might be interested in some saving the world action."

"Been there, done that. I'm a musician now."

"Really?" Ace looked deeply sceptical. "I heard you were hanging around getting under Sarah's feet."

"It is not my fault people keep mistaking me for a sidekick," Fitz grumbled and turned back to the telly.

"I've got a time-travelling motorbike out the front. Do you want to come for a spin?"

Fitz glanced through Sarah's front window. "Time-travelling motorbike? Seriously?"

"Seriously, and you ain't even remotely settling down here, whatever you think you're doing."

Fitz narrowed his eyes and glared at Sarah Jane. "Well, you aren't," she pointed out. "Domesticity doesn't suit you."

"I've earned money," he said defensively. "I've even got a job in a shop, starting next week."

"Which you will loathe. Go save the universe with Ace for a bit. Come back when you actually want to settle down."

Fitz looked out of the window at the motorbike again. It was very tempting. "Just a quick spin," he said to Ace.

Ace's grin was disconcertingly feral. 

He ignored it when Sarah quietly murmured, "I owe you one," to Ace as she ushered Fitz out of the door.

* * *

"This is just for old times' sake, you understand," Fitz insisted as he tagged along behind Ace through Covent Garden.

Ace looked over her shoulder at him, her scepticism obvious in her expression before she pushed on through the crowds. She had the Doctor's knack of looking like she belonged, even when wearing motorcycle leather while surrounded by women in crinolines.

"What year did you say this was again?" Fitz asked as she turned down a side street.

"I didn't, but the bike reckons 1888."

"We're not looking for Jack the Ripper, are we?" Fitz asked catching up with her. He tried to decide whether it would be cool or just depressing, if the Ripper turned out to be an alien.

"Been there, done that. Several times as a matter of fact."

"Several times?"

"It's one of those events that seems to get rewritten a lot."

"It's certainly the sort of thing the Faction would have loved. I can see they'd really like there to be lots of explanations."

Ace nodded. "Mind you, it's some time since I ran into Faction Paradox. I don't think they had a good war."

"For once, I'm just going to be pleased about that," Fitz said viciously. 

There were a lot worse things out in the universe than Faction Paradox, but he felt personally about them, to a point that bordered on the vindictive. He felt personally about what they had done to the Doctor, and what they had done to Sam Jones - or at least the way they had exploited what had happened to her. Of course they had also interfered with Fitz and with the original Fitz, but his feelings about that were so confused he'd never really worked out what his attitude to it was. He may not have had a lot of options, but no one had forced him to do anything.

"What are we doing here then?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"Attempting to repatriate some refugees."

* * *

Of course, refugees are always fleeing from something and, in this case, the evil regime had pursued them. Fitz had long lost any real sense of where he was. The London of 1888 felt like it was a completely different shape to the one he knew, even though he got flashes of recognition from the occasional street sign and landmark. He just kept running, hearing the sound of pursuit on his heels. At least the policemen or stormtroopers or bounty hunters or whatever they were, were naturally slow. Fitz guessed, judging by their slightly elongated anatomy that they came from a planet with a lower gravity than Earth. That gave him some advantage in the chase. At least enough that he could pause for breath from time to time and wait for them to catch up, wait for them to spot the fluorescent yellow of his borrowed prison overalls and then he was on his way again, keeping far enough ahead that they wouldn't spot he wasn't, actually, one of their escapees.

He turned another corner, dodged around a crate, skidded in the muck by the central gutter, feeling his ankle twist as he fought for his balance and staggered on. He turned the next corner to see his pursuers ahead of him and cursed, realising they had split up. Among other things that meant they were now trying to hunt him properly, not simply running after him any old fashion. He turned on his heels and headed back on up the alleyway. Moments later he was out on one of London's wide thoroughfares and there was a third group of willowy aliens ahead of him.

That was when Ace came roaring down the street on the motorbike. She slowed as she came up to him, reaching out an arm that allowed him to swing up on the vehicle behind her and then they powered forwards, scattering aliens as they went. Fitz wrapped his arms tight around her waist and took deep ragged breaths, breathing in the smells of leather and oil and shampoo. Ace's body shifted against his as she leaned into the corners and he moved with her.

"Still want to go back to Sarah Jane's?" she shouted over her shoulder.

"I'm considering my options."

She drew the motorbike to a halt. 

Fitz glanced around but the aliens were nowhere to be seen.

"The distraction worked then?" he asked.

She twisted in his arms and placed a gloved hand against his cheek. "Yeah, it worked. Our refugees are all long gone."

Fitz nodded. "Good," he muttered.

"Still going back?" Ace asked with a smile, dropping her hand.

"Like I said, considering my options."

She grinned, adjusted the controls, and Fitz just knew they weren't set for 2011 and then she gunned the engine once more and they drove into the vortex.

* * *

They were somewhere around the end of the 18th century. Fitz couldn't really be bothered to keep track of the date, but there were lots of improbable wigs and big skirts, and he could make a wild guess. They had holed up in a coaching inn in the back of beyond and were attempting to keep a low profile. Fitz had his doubts about this, given the large crater they had left behind where the Quark ship had been, but he'd given up arguing about that kind of thing long before he met Ace.

Fitz was sprawled out on the bed, smoking as usual. Ace had dismantled, cleaned and reassembled a gun, because post-coital gun-cleaning was apparently in this century or something. She was now curled at the end of the bed, leaning against one of the wooden posts and eyeing him speculatively.

"What?" Fitz asked.

"Why don't you set up on your own? You're not as useless as you like to make out."

Fitz shrugged. "I'm more sidekick material, I reckon. I mean it's pretty much what I've been doing my whole adult life."

"You insisted you had given up side-kicking."

Fitz gestured expansively with the cigarette, trying to take in Ace, the gun, the time-travelling motorbike hidden somewhere in the hedgerow down the lane. Even Fitz had to admit that his pretence at not side-kicking had gone out of the window the moment he got on that bike.

"Maybe that's why the Doctor kicked you out? He thought it was time you branched up on your own." 

Fitz wished he didn't still feel like he'd been slapped every time the Doctor came into the conversation. He stubbed his cigarette out viciously on the headboard and sat up to glare at Ace. "That is not why he kicked me out."

"Why then."

Fitz drew in a deep breath and shuddered. "Adventuring I could cope with, the Time War was something else. I'm just not... I'm not a soldier. Side-kick yes. Soldier no."

Ace regarded him carefully for a moment or two. "I was only ever on the edges of the Time War. Counted myself lucky not to get more involved, but I know a bit about soldiering."

Fitz half-shrugged. "Well, you were always more than a side-kick. I heard about you during the war. Ace McShane, Dalek killer."

Ace made a face, so like the Doctor's own and yet so different. Fitz watched her as she slid off the bed and padded across the room restlessly.

"Do you want me to leave?" Fitz asked. "Why?"

"Because you're not really in love with me."

Fitz blinked. "I wasn't aware that was even... I mean, I didn't mean..."

Ace waved. "Oh, I was under no illusions, but I'd prefer not to be sleeping with someone who would prefer to be sleeping with the Doctor."

"I'm not gay!" Fitz protested, more for form's sake than anything else.

Ace gave him a very hard look. "Cut that out. You are better than that kind of crap and you've been around enough to know it too."

Fitz took a deep breath, acknowledging the truth of her words. "Okay! That was stupid of me, but honestly I'm not gay. I'm really not."

"Except where the Doctor is concerned? Face it, Fitz, you're as bi as they come, just with the misfortune of being born in 1936 and then spending most of your adult life fixated on the Doctor so you convinced yourself he was some kind of exception."

"Well, maybe, but so what? If I'm bi why can't I be with you?"

"Because as far as you're concerned I'm just a substitute for the Doctor and I'm not having that. I don't know if there is anyone out there you were ever serious about who wasn't a Doctor substitute but it isn't me."

Fitz suppressed the urge to laugh. Because even the Doctor had sometimes teased him about all the women and he'd been serious, or at least mostly serious, about at least most of them and not a single one had had been anything like the Doctor.

"Someone who would understand about time travel," Ace amended, obviously tracking his thought process. It wasn't like his love life was much of a secret.

Fitz closed his eyes and sighed. "There was Sam, only it wasn't her and it wasn't me. It was really complicated."

"When isn't it? Tell me about this Sam who wasn't Sam."

So Fitz told her.


	3. Sam

They checked out five video rental stories before they found Sam. Fitz was about ready to give up because he wasn't at all convinced by Ace's crazy theory. Ace's crazy theory being that the Time War would have erased all the changes in Sam's biodata. There would be no blonde Sam, only the dark-haired girl Fitz had met briefly in San Francisco.

"This is stupid," Fitz grumbled for the eighth time (he was counting) as they walked into the store. 

Because it was. Dark haired Sam was a vague memory who a completely different Fitz had really briefly had a fling with. She'd made him better, but only because he'd been trying to fill the gap her blonder self had left behind. They had known each for only a few days and only then because her time stream was completely fucked, and then she had vanished.

An employee stacking shelves near the entrance looked up and Fitz stopped short. Her face was a carefully neutral expression, neither hostile nor welcoming. She turned back to the shelf and carried on with her job.

Someone, presumably Ace, shoved him hard from behind making him stumble into Sam, knocking half a dozen videos from her hands.

"Sorry!" said Ace, sounding nothing of the sort.

Fitz shot her an angry look, before crouching down. "Here let me help."

"Thanks!" Sam's reply was short and guarded. He really didn't know how to play this. Obviously she was going to be wary of some random guy trying to hit on her while she was at work.

He straightened up and wandered off nonchalantly down another aisle, browsing film titles that meant nothing to him. Ace walked up behind him.

"Aren't you going to say something? That's her isn't it!" she hissed.

"Like what exactly. Hey! You don't remember me because there has been a mix-up involving two time wars and some time-travelling voodoo cultists, but do you fancy a shag?"

Ace breathed out noisily and then stomped off down the other aisle. Fitz wondered if there was a classic film section where he could find something he recognised. He looked down at the videos again, attempting to make sense of their titles. His heart was beating ridiculously fast because, beyond all possibility, Sam still existed. A Sam that was close to one he'd known. It was as if, in some small way, the Time War and being abandoned by the Doctor wasn't quite so bad.

"Excuse me! My friend really fancies you, so I was wondering if you fancied a drink after work."

Fitz looked over in horror to where Ace had accosted Sam. He briefly considered attempting to hide behind a large box advertising second hand videos for a pound each but then decided that would be even more embarrassing. He took a deep breath and walked over to Sam and Ace.

"Hi. Ignore Ace, she's just anxious to set me up with someone. I'm Fitz." He stuck out his hand.

Sam shook it cautiously. "So you don't fancy me then?" There was a faint smile at the corners of her mouth. It was terribly familiar.

"I didn't say that, but this isn't really the place and you're working so I'm sorry we bothered you."

The smile reached Sam's eyes. It was still cautious but she looked more relaxed.

"That's OK. Hey, nothing ventured nothing gained! I'm off at 6pm if you want to stop by."

Fitz grinned. "Will do."

When he turned around Ace as already hiring videos from the counter.

"What have you got?" he asked. 

"James Bond."

"I did actually catch up on those, you know."

"Never too late to watch again."

* * *

The pub Ace had picked was crowded with smart-suited types, who were drinking designer cocktails and talking loudly. Fitz winced and felt Sam's eyes sweep the throng with a kind of derision. He pushed his way to the bar and fiddled around with the bloody decimal coins Ace had given him. When he got back to the table they had snagged, Ace had already contrived to vanish off into the crowds.

"She really badly wants to set you up," Sam observed.

Fitz shrugged. "I think she's just tired of me following her around."

Sam frowned over her drink. "Have we met? Because I have the oddest sensation that I know you from somewhere."

Fitz's blood ran cold. His mind went completely blank. This was obviously a good opening to start trying to explain about the time wars and Faction Paradox but he couldn't even think where to start.

At that moment the bar was invaded by half-a-dozen Ogrons and Fitz was saved the need to respond.

* * *

"Does this sort of thing happen to you often?" Sam asked.

Fitz had no real idea where they were, though he thought it was a safe bet they were still somewhere in the Solar System. He'd broken them out of the holding cell and had a vague plan to take over the bridge with his mighty force, which consisted, it was true, of himself, Sam, three stockbrokers, the barman and a cycle courier.

Fitz shrugged. "Sort of. To be honest it sort of used to happen to you a lot too only then it didn't."

She sighed. "It worries me that that isn't even close to the most nonsensical thing I've heard today."

She slipped a hand into his and they charged up the corridor together, the mighty force on their heels.

* * *

Once Fitz had barricaded the mighty force into the ship's flight deck, called UNIT on the emergency phone Sarah Jane had given him several weeks ago, been passed on (somewhat to his surprise) to the Indian Space Agency, and following their relayed instructions set the ship's course to head back to Earth, it had all got a bit dull.

One of the stockbrokers had a pack of cards in his briefcase and Fitz had suggested poker. However he had been over-ruled - something he was sure never happened to the Doctor and now the stockbrokers and the cycle courier were playing what appeared to be an extremely competitive game of bridge. The barman had gone to sleep, saying to wake him up if it looked like the Ogrons would break in through the sealed blast door.

"How can he possibly sleep?" Fitz asked. Even though they had nothing to do for several hours he was still buzzing with nervous energy.

"Some people just can," Sam said. "And you seem to have everything pretty well in hand."

Fitz ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "I'm just the side-kick. I don't do the reassuring `I have a plan' thing, and anyway even when the Doctor did that people never really believed him."

Sam hitched herself up to sit on the flight console. "Maybe you're better at this than you think."

Fitz eyed her carefully. "You're taking this a lot more calmly than you did last time."

"Yeah, so explain about last time, because it looks like we've got a wait and you keep dropping all these mysterious hints."

* * *

Sam's eyes had a slightly glazed look by the time he'd given her a whirlwind tour of Faction Paradox, biodata, her blonde version, the dark-haired version he'd met, the first Time War and the blonde version's apparent disappearance.

"So, this isn't the real me."

"No, it is. More the real you, I think, than the blonde one. She was like shaped to be the ultimate side-kick. The rest of us are just muddling along 'cos that's what real people do."

"You sound like you didn't like her much."

"Oh, I liked her a lot but, she was a bit out of my league, you know. She was a good mate but she was really close to the Doctor, which always meant I was a bit of a third wheel and that was, I dunno..."

"So after she left, you got to be side-kick number one."

Fitz scowled. "It wasn't like that. Well, I suppose it was towards the end but at the start, I was just another person along for the ride."

"Except the Doctor remembered you back into existence, so you must have been important, yeah?"

Fitz closed his eyes. "He was always a bit cagey about that. I mean, I know it was what Kode wanted, he wanted to be Fitz Kreiner so the Doctor was just trying to help out and, to be honest, I think it was mostly the TARDIS who did the remembering."

Sam touched his arm. "Could the TARDIS have made you into the companion that the Doctor wanted?"

Fitz shuddered. "I hope not. I mean I'm not at all like Sam was and she was the perfect companion, I'm just this bloke. I like to think I'm pretty close to the original Fitz Kreiner."

"So, when you came looking for me. Was it really an attempt to chat me up, or did you just want to know that a Samantha Jones had survived somewhere?"

"There were some versions of Sam that I met, that had it really bad. It was good to find out you were OK."

"I don't think my parents would think that."

Fitz snorted. "Believe me, I've seen the alternatives, you're doing fine."

And she was. He had a feeling she was a bit more sorted out in her life than the Sam he had met, though not a lot. She was still working in a video rental store, and he'd seen the track marks on her arm when they'd used her sweatshirt as a decoy for an Ogron patrol.

"But I'm not the blonde one, the one who spent ages working out and had secret code numbers with the Doctor, who never took drugs, never even smoked, campaigned for Amnesty International, was probably in the running for Head Girl and then a good university."

Fitz caught her hand. "Would you want to be her?"

"I don't know. It's a lot to take in."

Fitz nodded. "You're alive, that's the main thing. You actually exist and you could so easily never have existed at all."

"Same with you," she said and touched his face lightly before withdrawing her hand and staring up at the ceiling, apparently lost in thought.

* * *

It was, Fitz thought, as he hovered at the door to Sam's block of flats rather typical. Any other woman and he'd have been attempting to worm his way up there, but Sam was different and she'd had a tough day and a lot to take in.

"Well, umm, be seeing you," he said lamely and pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket. 

Sam paused in the doorway and then stepped towards him. "Can I have one of those, I think I left mine on the Ogron ship."

Fitz angled the packet towards her and she helped herself. He then fumbled with his lighter, helping her to light up.

"The Doctor was a big deal, wasn't he?" she asked.

Fitz sighed and leaned back against the wall. Naturally Sam was going to want to go over everything again, get it straight and the least he could do was be honest with her. "Yeah, he was."

"And Ace was trying to hook you up with me. Was it her plan to help you get over him?"

"Well maybe," Fitz conceded. "But Ace was definitely the rebound and Sam and I, at least the Sam that looked like you and the original me before I got remembered..." he tailed away. "Shit, this is a mess."

"Sam and you?" she asked raising an eyebrow in an exaggerated fashion. 

Fitz shrugged and opted for sarcasm. "Women can't resist my rugged and manly charm. But it complicates matters. I mean, you aren't her and I'm not him."

Sam nodded and exhaled a long stream of smoke. "Let's say we forget about that other Sam and that other you."

"Easier said than done."

"I dunno. It's not like I've ever met the other you and it's not like you've ever met the other me, right?"

"Well, that's a point of view." Fitz tried the idea out in his mind, but although he knew, intellectually, that he wasn't the original Fitz Kreiner, the memories seemed real enough. 

They smoked in silence for a bit.

"Are you going to come up to my flat with me, or what?" Sam asked suddenly.

Fitz blinked. "Do you think that's a good idea?"

"Almost certainly not, but then good ideas have never been my thing and I don't think they're really yours either."

Which astute observation made the invitation pretty much irresistible.

* * *

Three days later Ace was waiting for them as they left the flat. Fitz had been a bit worried about her in a low-level way during the whole Ogron kidnapping thing. He was unsurprised, when they finally got back to Earth in an ISA shuttle, to discover she'd been with UNIT the whole time. She was a little cagey about the ins and outs and he had a feeling she'd spent several hours in a cell, but by the time his feet were back on the ground an understanding had been reached and she was an official UNIT ally.

Ace had an unfamiliar motorbike with her.

"What's this?" Fitz asked, eyeing it with appreciation.

"Present. For you."

"A motorbike."

Ace thwacked a black box mounted on the back. "Same modifications."

"A time-travelling motorbike?" Sam queried.

Ace nodded.

"Ace, I'm a sidekick. I'm not the save the universe type."

"Maybe it's for me then," said Sam.

Fitz turned to stare at her and his mouth worked silently. She grinned silently. "Come on, Fitz. Show me the universe!"

Fitz's mind raced. He'd spent a lot of the past three days - in between sex, smoking and trying to persuade Sam's boss that he wanted another shop assistant - talking about the Doctor and all the places they had seen. Sam was good at drawing him out without being cloyingly concerned over him, perhaps because she was rebuilding her own identity at the same time.

"Not sure about the universe," he managed. "I think it only travels a couple of centuries either way."

"Well show me the 1960s or something then. Once I've got the hang of it, you can be my sidekick."

"No," Fitz grinned. "No, let's do this together."

"Equal partners?"

They shook hands on it. Ace pulled on her sunglasses. "I'll tell Sarah Jane you'll be around at the weekend, that's 7th May 2011. I think she might have a job for you."

"I'd like to visit the future," Sam remarked.

"What? Wait? I'm a free agent! I don't work for Sarah!" Fitz protested.

Ace smirked, turned her back and strode down the street. "It's a place to start, Kreiner!" 

She was right about that. Fitz climbed onto the motorbike. Sam climbed on behind him and her arms wound around his waist.

Fitz took a deep breath. "OK, Universe. Here we come."


End file.
